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1.6: Devices
The sixth session of The Empress' New Fleet. Played in July 2016. The Party * Icaea Hoia, Human Factotum * Agernásson IV, High Elf Ranger * Trettos, Human Warlock * Gorn Le'Lyana, Human Ardent Journal They have a little time free to spend in Salmo, so the group decides to run what little errands they have. It's not too hard to find the manor of House Mantarch, Lorry's family of rich and noble merchants. The guard on the door eyes them and the passing crowd with overenthusiastic sternness, but they manage to get inside by showing the letter they're delivering. The guard unceremoniously escorts them to Lord Mantarch's office, where the crotchety old man doesn't even stop his work to acknowledge the party's arrival. He skims the letter and lets out a deep sigh: Mantarch: ”So, it seems you saved my son's life?” Trettos: ”Yes, he made it safely to Princebank. He intends to stay there.” Mantarch: ”I sure hope so.” An awkward silence. Gorn: ”Lorry said we could receive some sort of reward from you.” Mantarch: ”Well, it's not for him to decide, but I'm afraid he's not entirely wrong. How much do you want?” The group huddles up to negotiate while Mantarch watches with growing annoyance. They decide to try for a little modesty. Icaea: ”We want 600.” Mantarch: ”Sure, not too unreasonable. Just wait at the front door and you'll have your money in just a minute.” They wait outside for Mantarch and his servant to bring a bag of coins, hand it to them and slam the door shut again. Icaea: ”Hey, wait... these are silver pieces! I meant 600 gold! Goddamn cheapskate!” On second thought, Lorry did mention not getting along with his father, though this was definitely worse than expected. The party stops to consider the flammability of the manor, but ultimately decides to just suck up this grand treason... for now. They definitely hold a grudge. Icaea wants to visit the Temple of Wavestrider, and Agernásson decides to join him, but Trettos and Gorn go for a walk around the city instead. Icaea walks in to find the main chapel deserted apart from a novice priest – his replacement – stuck with the hopeless task of mopping the floor dry when it keeps getting wet from the splashing waterfalls and humid air. Icaea asks for Abbot Polypos and is directed into the back. He runs into the Abbot in the hall. Abbot: ”Oh. Haven't seen you much in the last couple months.” Icaea: ”Hey, I made no long-term commitments. I've had important things to do.” Abbot: ”So why are you here then?” Icaea: ”I just came to check in, ask whether there's anything going on. I'd also like to ask about the clerics stationed on the navy's ships – there's supposed to be one of your priests on every vessel, right?” Abbot: ”W-well, yes. We've been very busy recently, as there are so many new ships being made, and we're a little undermanned.” Icaea: ”I was expecting something more like a list.” DM: ”There's no way I'm making, let alone giving you, a list of every ship and priest in the whole navy of a military power. I'm sure you understand.” Icaea: ”Undermanned? Why not make me an official priest, then?” Abbot: ”With all due respect – which really isn't much – you couldn't even finish the first stages of your training. There is no way you're suited to be a priest.” Gravely offended, Icaea leaves the temple with Agernásson in tow. Meanwhile, on their otherwise peaceful walk, Gorn and Trettos note that there are an awful lot of guards and soldiers on the streets, and the cove is also patrolled by an unusual number of boats. They assume it's all in response to the shipyard attacks. While they're still out and about, Agernásson decides to spend most of his reward money on a Rod of Ropes he saw in a shop earlier, a most useful item that can create rope and launch grappling hooks from both ends. Everyone still thinks that they shouldn't hand over the artifact if and when they find it. However, there's some disagreement about the details. They take great care to do their plotting far away from the Heartlock, just in case Tynsagma is eavesdropping on them. Agernásson and Trettos think they should make some sort of fake to fool Redsash, and maybe Tynsagma as well, to win some time for their escape – collecting rewards from both sides is just a plus. Gorn and Icaea think they should make a run for it as soon as they can, as they really have no way to create a convincing fake on such short notice, and there are far too many ways the plan could go terribly wrong. After a long and heated debate, Gorn and Icaea's more cautious (and less callous) plan ends up winning. They don't really know what they'll do with the artifact or where they'll go – Vapa Inkoti is the main option, though hiding in the Underdark sounds much more reasonable than it should – but they'll burn that bridge when they get to it. A few days later, the party meets Court Wizard Cladius at the docks. He is accompanied by his pale young apprentice Penn, who he proclaims will be accompanying the group on their quest. The party isn't exactly happy with the idea, especially given their plans of betrayal. Agernásson: ”It'll be very dangerous. We don't need a boy running around, risking our lives as well as his own.” Cladius: ”I know that, and so does he. I'll be frank: he's not just there for your help. This is a very important assignment, and Lord-Admiral Redsash wants to have his own man present. Still, I'm sure he can be of use.” Penn: ”Besides, I'm already 19, not just a 'boy'!” Party: *groans* The party, followed by Penn, boards the small cog Oakhound. Normally the ship would carry soldiers as well, but Redsash is still trying to keep this as quiet as he can, so there's just a relatively small crew led by a certain Captain Alcedine, who's rather rude towards the party. Alcedine: ”I've been told little to nothing about this voyage. I don't even know who you are. All I know is that we have to take you to some uncharted spot in the middle of the sea, and probably back, too. Don't expect me or the crew to go beyond our duties for your sake.” Agernásson and Penn help Brother Aaron, the ship's own priest and navigator, read Cladius' confusing maps and reach their destination in just six days. As some of them had already suspected, the uncharted spot in the sea is an awfully familiar-looking little island. The Oakhound drops its anchor and the party (including Penn) is rowed to shore. They soon find the remnants of their makeshift palisade and confirm that this is indeed the island they ”visited” earlier. They expect to run into goblins again, but as Icaea's bat familiar leads them to the cave it found last time, there's a conspicuous lack of any humanoids in sight. It's located at the opposite side of the island – at the entrance they find an old and cold firepit, and in the bushes there's a lazily hidden two-hulled canoe. The bat gives them the all-clear so they enter the cavern after fetching some extra lanterns from the ship. It looks clearly lived-in, though not at the moment: there are empty crates, random planks, beds made of leaves and even some wooden pillars supporting the rocky tunnels, but no bodies or anything, and everything useful has clearly been taken along. At the end of the cavern lies a larger room with a hole in the ceiling, letting in sunlight, but more interesting is the hole in the stone floor: perfectly round, about 10 ft. across and – based on the lantern they lower with the Rod of Ropes – at least 30 ft. deep. The bottom is covered in old decomposed corpses and other refuse, but the hole itself is more than suspicious. As the others are all a bunch of wussies, Icaea uses the rope to climb down and investigate. Shoving the filth out of the way, he finds that the bottom is covered in carvings of patterns and runes that he recognizes as ”vaguely Goblin-ish” but can't really decipher. Penn, whose presence they still don't really appreciate, wants to try something. He lowers himself into the hole and digs his pockets for a small, silvery marble which he places in the middle of the floor. It sinks into the stone and opens up a 6 ft. hole, which most of the filth falls into, while Penn and Icaea stand on the edges. The marble levitates in the middle of the hole. Agernásson: ”Where'd you get that?” Penn: ”From Master Cladius, of course. I told you I was going to be useful.” Under them is a dark space their little lantern has trouble lighting properly, but the floor isn't that far below. Once again, Icaea's bat fails to find any immediate danger, so the whole party climbs down one by one. This definitely seems to be what they're looking for. As soon as the first of them touches the floor, a pulse of blue light spreads along the walls and floor, lighting up the whole hallway: while the cavern above was mostly natural, this area is lined with smooth, untarnished masonry. A dim blue light emanates from the cracks. Everyone's glad to see where they're going, but also worried that the pulse was some sort of alarm. Trettos uses his spiderwalk to climb to the ceiling and retrieve the marble, closing the hole they came through. Further down the hallway they find a room with a stone walkway over a dark and clouded pool of water. They can't see any movement in the water, but that just makes them even more suspicious of it. The large wall on the other side of the pool is covered in markings similar to those at the bottom of the hole; however, when Penn tries to insert the marble, an invisible barrier stops him from approaching within a foot's distance of the wall. There are, however, two particularly bright lines of light leading into narrow corridors on each side of the room. The eastern corridor is a dead end, with more runes on the wall at the back, but the line clearly goes through here. Penn inserts the marble and a hole opens, but the opposite side is covered in a layer of ice. Trettos blasts it away, revealing a whole room covered in ice, with a distinct spot of bright light on the opposite wall. That seems to be where the line on the wall ends. Icaea sends his bat to investigate. However, as soon as it enters the room, something vaguely spear-like shoots from the ceiling before retracting again, barely missing the frightened animal which flies back to its master. They wonder whether it's a mechanical trap or some kind of beast; Agernásson seems oddly attached to the idea of it being a ”harpoon spider”, having perhaps encountered such a thing in the past. Penn carelessly sticks his head in and somehow manages to slip on the floor, receiving a ”spear” through the shoulder before the others pull him to safety. Trettos shoots at the ice covering the light on the wall, revealing some sort of glowing crystal. They come up with a plan: Gorn runs into the room, dimension hops to dodge the spear and yanks the crystal out of the wall. However, when he does so, the whole area goes completely dark. Deciding they should deal with this room first, he sticks the crystal back in for now and the blue lights come back on. They finally take a moment to see what their enemy even is in the first place. It's a monstrous bluish-white lizard, sticking to the icy ceiling with its claws and lashing at them with its deadly tongue. Icaea dashes in, leaps up and pulls it down with his harpoon-like spear. He's stuck fighting and grappling with the lizard on the icy floor, but Gorn manages to chop it into pieces with his falchion. The lizard's corpse immediately evaporates and the ice starts to disappear, too, so they come to the conclusion that it was probably just a summoned monster. The group returns to the room with the pool, but half of the markings on the wall are still lit and the barrier is still there, so they enter the western corridor and find a similar dead end. Penn, who clearly did not learn from his last experience, is again the one to open the hole. Beyond is a small room with a kyton – a chain devil, an infernal humanoid covered in jagged chains from head to toe – controlling two monstrous hellhounds through chains on its torso. The room itself is full of hanging chains as well, and on the wall is a glowing crystal. The group only has a second to look inside before the chained hellhounds breathe a blast of fire at Penn, who stumbles backwards with mild burns and casts an obscuring fog cloud into the room. Penn: ”...I panicked, alright?” After quickly closing the hole, the group tries to make another plan. They realize these devils were probably summoned as well, so Gorn's psionic powers should be able to dispel them. They open the hole, Gorn manifests dispel psionics and all three monsters completely shrug it off, to his great confusion and frustration. They sheepishly close the hole. The group realizes they don't actually need to fight the devils, as long as they can just remove the crystal and depower the barrier in the main room. Gorn uses his telekinetic force to quickly yank the crystal out of its socket, leaving it on the floor of the room before closing the hole once more. The lights go off and the group returns to the pool, feeling victorious... only to have the lights come on again. Many facepalms are had as they realize that the chain devil could simply put the crystal back into its socket. The basic idea was alright, but they need to actually get the crystal out of the room. Problem is, Gorn's telekinesis isn't quick enough to do that in just a few seconds. Time for the next attempt: after shielding himself with a force screen, he dimension hops behind the chain devil, takes out the crystal plans to hop back the way he came. However, he has to survive for a moment before using his powers again. Those few seconds are enough for the devil to command the hanging chains, making them cut at Gorn and trip him by tangling around his legs. Trettos tries to distract the devil with an eldritch blast, but the beam simply vanishes harmlessly, having failed to penetrate its spell resistance. More importantly, someone – nobody can agree on the perpetrator – takes advantage of this chaos to shove Penn into the room as an added ”distraction”. Penn, lying face-down on the floor, barely has time to realize what is happening before the hellhounds are upon him, savaging him as he screams in agony. Nobody can help him in time. By the time that Gorn hops out of the room with the crystal in hand, Penn has already stopped moving and is quite indisputably dead. The group quickly closes the hole and retreats to discuss what the hell just happened. There's no certainty of who actually pushed him inside – though Icaea is the main suspect, Gorn is the only one fully beyond suspicion. Besides, even though Penn's death was extremely sudden and cruel, everyone is forced to acknowledge that they probably would've had to kill him sooner or later anyway if they wanted to make their escape. If nothing else, they're starting understand the sacrifices they'll have to make for the sake of allegedly ”protecting” this vaguely-defined artifact. ”Man, if we're even Good now, we're definitely not staying that way for long.” After an only-slightly-sarcastic moment of silence for the young man they just murdered, the group decides to forge on, into the room they hope to be the last. The large, rune-covered wall now has all its lights turned off and they are able to insert the marble. Beyond is a large, octagonal chamber with a domed ceiling, covered in glowing markings. A raised pedestal stands in the middle, with some small object suspended in the air above it. However, before the party has time so see what the object is, a large elemental of blue fire manifests around it. Seven robed creatures, chained to the walls of the dome, are freed from their shackles and land on their feet. All seven resemble monstrous hobgoblins. Their iron muzzles fall off, revealing fearsome fangs, and they turn their flaming eyes towards the group. The group decides to take the initiative, Agernásson heading left while Icaea and Gorn go right. Trettos climbs the sloping wall and fires off a few blasts, but an orb of fire thrown by the elemental drops him back to the floor, though he sticks the landing. Agernásson has no trouble keeping several hobgoblins at bay with his chain as they try to slash at him with their long claws. After the battle has gone on for a moment, some of the larger markings on the floor glow intensely and spew out tall walls of roaring blue fire, dividing the room into several sectors and restricting movement for both the party and the undead. The elemental is happy just floating above the pedestal and throwing more fireballs. After sticking his spear through a hobgoblin's ribcage, Icaea confirms his first impression that they're just some sort of undead, though far too mobile for mere zombies. The ring he got from the rebel leader Tynsagma finally gets some use, projecting a shield of force that he uses to keep one of the undead at bay, but another one finds an opening and digs its fangs into his shoulder, latching on tightly. About to get overwhelmed, Icaea thinks of the Abbot's words from a week ago: ”no way you're suited to be a priest.” As he channels his own anger and the Wavestrider's might, the holy symbol tattooed on the back of his right hand starts to glow. He uses it to punch the nearest hobgoblin in the face. The three creatures harassing him and Gorn are overwhelmed with divine awe, trying to flee and running straight through several walls of flame, falling to the ground as smoldering husks. Pleasantly surprised, Icaea heads towards the elemental and Gorn decides to follow. As they close in, the elemental stops wasting time with fireballs and uses its fiery fists instead. There's a lot of force behind those seemingly immaterial blows, giving Icaea and Gorn quite the pummeling in addition to severe burns. Despite Icaea being already wounded, Gorn seems to be taking the worst of it. Icaea thinks he can use these divine powers of his to heal him, but before he has a chance to try, flames spring up between them, leaving Gorn to fend for himself. Though there are some close calls, Trettos manages to disrupt the elemental with his entangling blast and help ensure that nobody (else) has to die today. With the group's concentrated efforts, the elemental finally dissolves into thin air and the undead are finished off. They finally get a closer look at the object on the pedestal. It appears to be a bronze disk, covered in green patina, about the width of a dinner plate and a couple inches thick. Despite spending some time inside a fire elemental, it isn't even warm to the touch, so they pick it up, removing power from all the glowing markings on the walls. The disk seems to consist of twenty concentric rings, all locked together and marked with symbols that look suspiciously like Infernal writing. Half-joking, Trettos tries swinging the disk around and pointing it at the corpses lying around, but nothing seems to happen. However, the magic emanating from the object is strong enough to give him a bad headache when he looks at it too long, so it's definitely the artifact they were looking for. It's not like there are any more rooms to investigate, anyway. Before leaving the dungeon, proud and triumphant, the group decides to take one last look at the room where Penn was killed. The chain devil and the hellhounds are gone, but Penn and his belongings have been torn and mangled almost beyond recognition. The only intact object they find on him is a magical scroll they can't decipher but that they sheepishly take with them before sealing the room again. As they finally clamber out of the hole they used to enter the dungeon, they're not even surprised to see someone waiting for them. Two men are leaning on the cavern wall, looking relaxed but rather bored if anything. One is a large, muscular human with a massive sledgehammer strapped to his back. The other has silver-colored skin, which Trettos and Gorn recognize as the sign of a Falazi, and a garish bright orange jacket that everyone can agree looks absolutely horrible. The men don't even bother moving when they see the group. The larger man just grins like an idiot while the fashion disaster does the talking. Falazi: ”About time. Did you find what you were looking for?” Agernásson: ”Uh... who exactly are you supposed to be?” Falazi: ”We were sent by Tynsagma to pick you up after you got the artifact. We came on a small sailboat, and I don't think those Ufurcans saw us, so we should have no trouble sailing to Princebank. But I repeat: do you have the artifact?” Trettos: ”Do you... mind if we make a little call?” They use the Heartlock to contact Tynsagma. Tynsagma: ”Yes, I sent Miklos and Adrian to make sure you got here safely. You don't really have a ship you can use, right?” Agernásson: ”You really should've told us ahead of time.” Tynsagma: ”I have no way to know when it's safe. If anyone on the enemy side heard me talking to you, the whole plan would be ruined. Can't be too careful.” They turn back towards the two men. Agernásson: ”Okay, we believe you. But how does your master intend to keep us hidden? We might have a head start, but the Lord-Admiral and his mages can definitely use magic to track us.” Falazi: ”Don't ask me, but I'm sure he has something planned. He has managed to hide himself for several years, after all. Just come with us and we'll figure it out; we'll even let you hold onto the artifact for now.” The group shares some worried glances. Falazi: ”So, are you ready to go or what?” Category:Lorelm Category:Kampanjat Category:Content Category:English